Despite supporting dark mode on Android since the Android 9 beta, there’s always been a nagging problem with the theme — not all apps or icons follow it. To use dark mode previously, app developers had to actually bake dark mode into their apps themselves, and not all developers have bought into the trend. With the new Android 16 design, though, Google will force apps to use an inverted color theme by introducing expanding options for dark mode when using a new mode that ties into the theme.
According to a developer blog post that Google shared yesterday following the official unveiling of its Pixel 10 lineup, the new expanded option is already available to test in Android 16 QPR2 Beta 1. While it’s still likely a few months away from hitting the stable release of Android 16 — and even further depending on which smartphone brand you sport — knowing that Google is addressing this annoyance is definitely movement in the right direction.
One of the biggest reasons for this change, Google writes, is to provide “a more consistent user experience for users who have low vision, photosensitivity, or simply those who prefer a dark system-wide appearance.” With the expanded option on, the system will automatically take apps that run in light mode and invert them to appear darkened.
Not a replacement for baked-in dark mode
While it will already work for any app that utilizes standard Android Views, Composables, or Webviews, Google notes that custom rendering engines like Flutter will not be affected by the expanded dark mode option. Additionally, Google says that this is meant to be an accessibility feature first and foremost, and it still recommends that developers bake a dark mode directly into their apps to ensure there aren’t any issues with text being unreadable, as well as to prevent visual glitches within the app.
We’ve seen forced dark mode systems like this in the form of browser extensions already, and while those types of extensions work well in most cases, they aren’t always effective. It seems like Google is aware of this based on the language used here, and that’s likely a big part of why it continues to recommend that developers bake a dark mode directly into their code instead.
Expanded dark mode will also affect app icons that previously didn’t coordinate with the device’s dark mode settings. Whether or not this new mode will evolve further before the official release remains to be seen. But at least we know Google is working to fix one of dark mode’s most frustrating issues.
